...Somewhat off topic, but this isn't the only instance in this thread of people expecting the woman to produce the male child. Unless things have changed significantly since I had sex education in 6th grade, I thought the father was in charge of that aspect of things? Is this not taught in schools anymore?....

I find it shocking that not everyone knows this, but I recently had to explain this to a woman whose husband had been giving her grief about 3 girls and no boys.

Well, i don't know the exact science, but things like the pH in the woman's "plumbing" and gravity, and other sorts of stuff can factor in sometimes. Or at least it's sometimes been a theory.

But the BASIC point is that it's really not that probable that any human being can control what sex their baby is going to be.

One technique I learned from a business coach was to reflect back to the person what they said, for instance, "sounds like you are really curious about our family planning, is that right? said in a really sweet voice

I am one of 3 girls. It was never a secret that we were all supposed to be boys. My parents apparently wanted 4 kids but when DD #3 came along they decided not to try again.

My mum is very happy with her girls, I can't imagine her coping with boys. However my dad has made no secret that he would have loved to have a boy, even telling us the boys names he had picked out for each of us.

It really hit home when I was pregnant with DS1, my maternal grandmother said "You dad will finally get his boy!" when we told her we were expecting a boy. An older woman at church (who had known my dad since he was a teenager) said the same thing. Other people who know my family have made similar comments.

I know that my dad loves me, but I also still wonder if he would have loved us more (and perhaps be healthier, he has gone from being a fit young man before kids, to an overweight man for as long as I can remember. I often wonder if he had had at least one boy to do the "sports thing" with if he would have stayed healthier) if we were boys (or at least one of us was a boy).

Now that I have 3 boys I have been asked if we will try for a girl. I have said "I wouldn't know what to do with a girl!" in a joking way. But otherwise I just say I am very happy with my boys. I don't ever want them to feel the doubt that I felt (and still feel).

You can't win. People will always find ways to ask silly and intrusive questions.

My parents have four children. They knew from the start they wanted four children, and planned to aim for 2 kids about 2 years apart, then a gap for those 2 to start school, then two more about 2 years apart. Which, apart from me being an October rather than a March baby, is pretty much what happened.

When it was just me and my leder sister they gt lots of comments about 'wouldn't they like to have a boy'

When my younger sister came along (7 years younger than Sister, 5.5 years younger than me) assumptions were made that the pregnancy must be an accident, because of the gap. And/Or that my parents must be desperate for a boy and so have 'kept trying'

When she was born there were comments about it beign a shame she was a girl.

When they completed the family with my brother the same thing - assumption that the pregnancy was an accident, or that they were trying for a boy, or (once he was born) that they had finally got hat they wanted and could stop.

(In fact, everyone was expecting a girl. they'd been told that after 3 of one gender, it was very unusual to have the 4th come the other gender, plus, both sides of the family run to girls.

When the midwife saud "You've got a beautiful baby boy" my mother's immediate response was "are you sure?" brother didn't get a name for the first 2 weeks of his life as they had not been thinking about boys names this time round)

One technique I learned from a business coach was to reflect back to the person what they said, for instance, "sounds like you are really curious about our family planning, is that right? said in a really sweet voice

I heard a story on NPR this morning that reminded me of this thread. It wasn't a case of all kids of the same gender, but a story about white parents adopting black babies. What brought this thread to mind was this quote:

Quote

Eyes do linger on her blended family in her community, Lantz says, and curious people make comments. Two years ago, before she had a second son, she started growing concerned about the effect those comments might have on her son as he grows older."I am a little nervous about what we're gonna do when he starts to understand why someone approached us at Target and thanked us for saving babies," she explained at the time. "Or when a woman, you know, walks down the aisle of the grocery store and says, 'What's he mixed with?' "Lantz responded to that incident, she recalls, by saying, "My son, we adopted him at birth. And, you know, his ethnic background is a little different. And we don't know a whole bunch about it, but he is a beautiful kid, isn't he?"

You know, there are just a whole lot of people out there who speak before they think and who apprently think that walking up to complete strangers to ask intrusive (and often insulting) questions is a-ok. You gotta tive this mom some credit for handling this with aplomb.

I heard a story on NPR this morning that reminded me of this thread. It wasn't a case of all kids of the same gender, but a story about white parents adopting black babies. What brought this thread to mind was this quote:

A co-worker of mine and his wife (both white) adopted a baby. Dad came up to me all excited to show me a photo. The baby was black. I'm embarassed that I was so surprised that I had to stop and think before I said anything, but I'm pleased that what I said was, "She's adorable!"

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It is the policy of the United States Navy to neither confirm nor deny the presence of nuclear weapons aboard its vessels.

I know that my dad loves me, but I also still wonder if he would have loved us more (and perhaps be healthier, he has gone from being a fit young man before kids, to an overweight man for as long as I can remember. I often wonder if he had had at least one boy to do the "sports thing" with if he would have stayed healthier) if we were boys (or at least one of us was a boy).

As if you and your sisters weren't capable of doing anything sports related? You have legs and arms, just like boys.

It's sad enough when strangers make comments leading kids to think they were "born wrong" (whether gender, coloring, personality, etc), but when parents do, shame on them.

My mother in law, the mother of three sons and no daughters just brushed off comments and would say, "Oh, no. I 'm a specialist. I only have boys." My former boss, the father of 5 girls, liked that and started using it. It was even funnier because he happened to be a physician, as was his wife.

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What have you got? Is it food? Is it for me? I want it whatever it is!

I know that my dad loves me, but I also still wonder if he would have loved us more (and perhaps be healthier, he has gone from being a fit young man before kids, to an overweight man for as long as I can remember. I often wonder if he had had at least one boy to do the "sports thing" with if he would have stayed healthier) if we were boys (or at least one of us was a boy).

As if you and your sisters weren't capable of doing anything sports related? You have legs and arms, just like boys.

It's sad enough when strangers make comments leading kids to think they were "born wrong" (whether gender, coloring, personality, etc), but when parents do, shame on them.

Or what if the boy had been a bookworm whose biggest interest in sports would have been through reading about it?

What ifs are pointless. Men with girl children have kept up in sports (remember the cartoon about the after-days of "Casey at the Bat" and his all-daughter girl's baseball team?), and men with boys have retired to the lazyboy and remote control. And men without children have done both.

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My cousin's memoir of love and loneliness while raising a child with multiple disabilities will be out on Amazon soon! Know the Night, by Maria Mutch, has been called "full of hope, light, and companionship for surviving the small hours of the night."

That's a good point! From my homeschooling group, I know a few mixed-race families, and a *lot* of families that have a mix of kids (sometimes some are biological and some aren't, but sometimes the kids are all adopted but just have different looks). I remember one mom talking about the looks she got when she (white) and her daughter (black) had their hair done the same way. And apparently the most common comment is, "Are they yours?" Which, while I could see somebody having reason to ask, has got to be painful for the kids to hear over, and over, and over, and over, you know? Just to complicate things, my husband and I are open to considering fostering or adoption at some point, and we'd be open to any race or sex, so we *could* end up with all sorts of questions being asked! Not to mention if we foster or adopt a boy after having had all girls biologically. I can only imagine the comments we'd get. But it's true in the end that it wouldn't make us decide to stick to adopting/fostering only girls of our race, so we'll have to deal with it if it happens.

I'll admit that I'm sort of assuming that if we have a fifth, it'll be a girl. While theoretically it's about 50/50, you definitely can have a tendency towards one sex or the other. Maybe I've just read Pride and Prejudice too much!

I definitely don't want to say anything that would come back to haunt me if we *did* have a boy at some point. So I can't go with the "I'm a specialist!" or "he'd look silly in the hand-me-downs!" type of comments, even if I think they're utterly hilarious (and I'll have to share them with my SIL, who has 3 boys and is definitely done, I think she'd love these ideas).

As for girls and sports, sure, girls can/do play sports. I have this theory, though, that when you have a household of all one sex, you have an increased tendency towards "girly" or "boyish" behavior, because that tends to be what the kids have in common. One girl might like dolls and theater, another like LEGOs and dolls, another like dolls and riding bikes, but that means that they all have playing dolls in common, so there's an increased tendency to play dolls because you see everybody else doing it, and everybody can do it together, etc. Versus my SIL's household which has a lot of guns and shooting and sports and superheroes.

That's a good point! From my homeschooling group, I know a few mixed-race families, and a *lot* of families that have a mix of kids (sometimes some are biological and some aren't, but sometimes the kids are all adopted but just have different looks). I remember one mom talking about the looks she got when she (white) and her daughter (black) had their hair done the same way. And apparently the most common comment is, "Are they yours?" Which, while I could see somebody having reason to ask, has got to be painful for the kids to hear over, and over, and over, and over, you know? Just to complicate things, my husband and I are open to considering fostering or adoption at some point, and we'd be open to any race or sex, so we *could* end up with all sorts of questions being asked! Not to mention if we foster or adopt a boy after having had all girls biologically. I can only imagine the comments we'd get. But it's true in the end that it wouldn't make us decide to stick to adopting/fostering only girls of our race, so we'll have to deal with it if it happens.

I'll admit that I'm sort of assuming that if we have a fifth, it'll be a girl. While theoretically it's about 50/50, you definitely can have a tendency towards one sex or the other. Maybe I've just read Pride and Prejudice too much!

I definitely don't want to say anything that would come back to haunt me if we *did* have a boy at some point. So I can't go with the "I'm a specialist!" or "he'd look silly in the hand-me-downs!" type of comments, even if I think they're utterly hilarious (and I'll have to share them with my SIL, who has 3 boys and is definitely done, I think she'd love these ideas).

As for girls and sports, sure, girls can/do play sports. I have this theory, though, that when you have a household of all one sex, you have an increased tendency towards "girly" or "boyish" behavior, because that tends to be what the kids have in common. One girl might like dolls and theater, another like LEGOs and dolls, another like dolls and riding bikes, but that means that they all have playing dolls in common, so there's an increased tendency to play dolls because you see everybody else doing it, and everybody can do it together, etc. Versus my SIL's household which has a lot of guns and shooting and sports and superheroes.

Dunno....I grew up with 5 very "boyish" brothers, (only sister was years older than me and not my "peer"), and I was very girly in my interests, dolls and playing house etc, not interested in boy stuff at all

As for girls and sports, sure, girls can/do play sports. I have this theory, though, that when you have a household of all one sex, you have an increased tendency towards "girly" or "boyish" behavior, because that tends to be what the kids have in common. One girl might like dolls and theater, another like LEGOs and dolls, another like dolls and riding bikes, but that means that they all have playing dolls in common, so there's an increased tendency to play dolls because you see everybody else doing it, and everybody can do it together, etc. Versus my SIL's household which has a lot of guns and shooting and sports and superheroes.

That's what I've seen, but I, personally, think a lot of that is on the parents. My favorite toys as a child were Legos and cars and my favorite color is green. When my first child was born, a girl, I bought her mostly puzzle toys (obviously, no Legos for newborns), cars and green things - green blankets, green clothes. When she was old enough to decide what she liked (cars, cats and yellow), I bought her those things.

I know not everyone agrees with me, but I think all children should try all things: sports, superheroes, cars, dolls, dressup, jumping on beds, etc.